Fall 2006

From For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut

Takashi Hiraide

14.

Today, with a triple hangover, I slowly pedalled and pedalled my wobbly bicycle, like a mist, past a back alley that murmurs condolences.

16.

To the world from which you keep straying away, you are an all the more refreshing fruit of gratitude. The early summer teeth of the beasts graze the inside of the room meant for being shaken by relentless sleep, and at times the rusty valley water of the metropolis traverses it as well. In the old, warped mirror that opens the night as a window, a silent fruit from the beginning, a seasonless snow from the end, falls lightly upon your shoulder and yet you do not notice, do not get hurt. This fact, without touching me, encourages me. It satisfies me with the juice of a gratitude that passes by without need for a recipient. Even knowing that in due time the door will kick out these illusions along with itself, into the dust-prone morning of young foliage.

21.

A faithless recognition that leaves no trace, of the dream rail that burns noisily the darkness towards your chest. It sweeps away with its tongue even the branches of oxygen which befall it, and does not lose its color, even to the single breath of driving rain that attacks from up ahead. Much less without hindrance, in spite of the apocalypse of red and yellow.

22.

It is now time to describe, towards a mossy nothingness, the shape of a fragment. The moment a shipwreck seeks—against its will—the pretense of wings, and when the eraser under the eaves just about to disappear first comes to face itself, and when this too is nothing more than a short-lived illusion. The sharp brilliance of the fragment criticizes the sharp form. I follow the contours of the blade. Not for purposes of sketching, but in order to make an agreement with the sweat of things at the moment the line tears, and to cross over to the next shape.

24.

Kafukafu, the conscientious crow circles around my skull. Crow, O crow, in the shallow forest, of Sendagaya, kind and warmhearted Jungle Crow. O antagonistic friend.

Translated from the Japanese
by Sawako Nakayasu